AASHTO RAC MEMBER SURVEY
Certification of University Lab Equipment
In Summary:
Only 5 of the 20 state DOTs and FHWA (21 responses) that responded to the survey had language in their
contracts that required the universities or consultants to be AMRL accredited when doing testing for DOT
acceptance purposes. They weren’t specific as to if this applied to their SPR program. Many states
admitted that it is a concern to theirs and have discussed it in the past on what to do... ~
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Original question:
Question: Are there provisions in the contract language of your SPR Part 2 program or DOT policy that
require the university lab equipment be inspected and certified annually to be in compliance with ASTM
or AASHTO acceptable tolerances?
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Responses:
IDOT has an intergovernmental agreement with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to
manage our contract research program through the Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT). We do not
have language in our contract that specifies that the university lab equipment be inspected and certified
annually. However, we have the same concerns that you have.
23CFR637 requires states to have a central lab that is inspected annually by the AASHTO Accreditation
Program (AMRL/CCRL). The CFR language also requires that any lab that performs testing that is used
as part of the state's acceptance decision must be a "qualified" lab. The CFR is silent as to what exactly
constitutes a "qualified" lab; basically, it is up to each state to decide what that means. In Illinois, our
central lab is AMRL/CCRL accredited, and then we have a program by which we go out and inspect the
district, consultant, and contractor labs to ensure that they are following proper protocol in terms of
equipment calibration and test procedures.
We shared our concerns about lab policies with ICT, and worked with them to get them into our state lab
inspection program. This way we have a greater level of confidence in their results. We also ask ICT to
participate in our round robin testing efforts. Finally, we are encouraging them to apply for AMRL
accreditation. NCHRP is starting to require/encourage their contractors to be AMRL accredited, which is
helping us in our efforts; ICT realizes that AMRL accreditation can help them with landing other research
projects. However, you can only get AMRL accreditation in certain areas,and many times ICT is doing
advanced testing (i.e., HMA beam fatigue testing) that AMRL does not inspect. In this case, we have to
rely on our lab inspection program and the basic AMRL accreditation to ensure that the lab is in the habit
of routinely checking and calibrating their equipment and trust that these practices will carry over into the
areas that AMRL does not inspect.
Good luck with your efforts. If you are willing to share the findings of your survey, we would welcome
the opportunity to learn from you.
Amy M. Schutzbach, P.E.
Engineer of Physical Research
Illinois Department of Transportation
Bureau of Materials and Physical Research
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MaineDOT does not have a policy or contract language in place to require certification as it relates to
research studies.
Dale Peabody
Transportation Research Division
Office of Safety, Training & Research
MaineDOT
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There is nothing in SP&R Part 2 guidelines that would require university lab equipment used for research
to be inspected annually to comply with ASTM or AASTHO specifications; however, a State can set this
policy and include it in its research agreement with a university. In addition, and if deemed necessary, the
cost of this inspection/calibration can be an allowable SP&R Part 2 Program expense, provided that it is
included in the State's approved Work Program.
If you have any other questions or need any additional information, please let me know.
Ivy Harris
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We do not have this language in our contracts; however, it is a good idea. We are going to add it. Do you
have some language to that effect? If not, and someone else responds with language, please send it my
way. We do have language in our contracts regarding new methods (see below).
"If test methods are to be developed as a part of this contract and proposed as national standards, the order
of submittal shall be first to American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO), in cooperation with MDT. If the test method or specification is not adopted though the
AASHTO process, the Contractor will be free to submit to American Society for Testing and Materials
(ASTM) or other national standard organizations."
Thanks,
Sue Sillick, Manager
Research Programs
Montana Department of Transportation
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We add the language to each individual project contract. This allows us to add new testing and technician
certification as well as equipment we can't afford in our own labs. Seems to work pretty well
Gary Frederick
New York
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In reply to your request, our Universities would follow their respective requirements to ensure testing and
obtaining results comply with Universal scientific practices. Our local Universities in BC do not have
Asphalt Research as part of their curriculum. Alberta and Ontario have Asphalt research programs.
We follow CCIL to validate our control testing labs and generally our Contractors have CCIL
certification.
We do not contract language as per your question..
Daryl Finlayson P.Eng.
Materials and Pavement Engineer
Victoria BC
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Almost all research concerning materials in LA is completed with our internal staff or by professors using
our facility. Our labs are AMRL/CCRL accredited. If we sub contract part of a study where we are the
prime and the study owner (such as NCHRP) requires accreditation then our sub would have to be
accredited.
Harold "Skip" Paul, P.E.
Director, LTRC
Baton Rouge, LA
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Carla and Steve,
Will the UTC facilities web site include lab certification information? I went back through my e-mails
and didn't see it. See below discussion. Has the survey gone out yet?
Thanks,
Sue Sillick, Manager
Adding Lab certification info to the database/website was suggested on one of the steering committee
conference calls. We're revising the first version of the database design, and our systems group is going
to add lab certification as its own field on the database. So, I've also added a question to the survey about
certification. We are getting ready to do an internal test on the electronic survey, to see how well the
results feed directly into the database. We'll release the survey more widely after that.
Carla
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We do not have that language in our general documents.
Some specific projects do have a few lines concerning calibration of equipment.
We only deal with KSU and KU and almost all their equipment they use is in compliance with ASTM and
AASHTO standards, especially the equipment they use for KDOT and contractor testing and research,
and to teach some of our technician certification classes.
KDOT sometimes verifies these calibrations, or at least we used to.
Thanks,
RAM
Rodney Montney
Kansas DOT
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Mr. Curb,
We do not have a policy or provisions in our research contracts concerning university lab certifications or
equipment inspections though the matter is discussed from time to time. On a couple of research projects
with potential for producing controversial results, Office of Materials and Research personnel checked lab
equipment and observed tests being performed at the universities conducting the projects. However, that
is not routinely done.
We are very interested in the responses you receive from other states and would greatly appreciate you
sharing them with us.
Thank you,
Mike Sanders
Research Engineer
SCDOT
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Normally, if our research project will involve laboratory investigation for pavements, we require that our
consultant labs (both university and private commercial labs) conform with CP 10 of our Field Materials
Manual. Attached are a sample language that we use for a concrete mix design research project request
for proposal and a copy of our CP 10 which requires personnel and facility certification to perform the
work for CDOT.
We included this requirement in our contract because we realized that some of the results of these
research projects could become the basis of special provisions and standard specifications and could be
the object of unnecessary dispute resolution and court litigation. Please let us know if you have any more
questions or need additional information in this regard.
Best regards.
Sincerely,
Roberto
Roberto E. DeDios, P.E.
Pavements and Materials Research Engineer
CDOT-DTD Applied Research and Innovation Branch
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Ron: For GDOT, the answer is no; however, the tests are understood to be in compliance & are noted as
such in the final report.
Please advise if any other questions.
Regards,
David M. Jared, P.E.
Senior Research Engineer & Library Supervisor
Georgia DOT/Office of Materials & Research
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IN INDOT Contract with Purdue University there is no clause of compliance with ASTM or AASHTO
for the lab. Please let me know if you have questions.
Thanks.
Tommy E. Nantung
Manager for Pavement, Materials, and Construction Research
Indiana Department of Transportation
Division of Research and Development
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Currently the NMDOT Research Bureau does not have any contract language in our contracts dealing
with SPR Part 2 program funding that requires the Universities Lab Equipment to be inspected and
certified on an annual basis to insure compliance with ASTM or AASHTO; the NMDOT does not
currently have a DOT policy requiring the same, but have discussed doing so in the past.
I did contact the two primary Universities that the NMDOT Research Bureau contracts with that deals
with material testing; University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM) and New Mexico State University
(Las Cruces, NM) and both universities responded affirmative to having an internal program to insure that
all their laboratory equipment is calibrated and certified by an external calibration company in compliance
with ASTM and/or ASSHTO requirements.
Thank You,
Virgil N. Valdez
Research Analyst
NMDOT Research Bureau
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The following is the response from our Materials Testing Engineer, Kevin Jones, regarding your inquiry.
We do not have contract language that addresses this. Please let me know if you need anything else.
We don't check or certify the University Labs since they don't do any verification testing work for us.
Iowa DOT staff performs the XRF testing of cement and fly ash at Iowa State University’s Materials
Analysis and Research Laboratory (MARL) so the XRF device and our staff are AMRL accredited. Scott
Schlorholtz and the MARL are inspected by CCRL for hydraulic cement, but they have not gone the extra
step to be accredited.
In my opinion, the CP Tech Center Laboratory at Iowa State University and the Bituminous Laboratories
at Iowa State University and the University of Iowa should be AMRL accredited for the tests that they
routinely perform for research projects. Unfortunately, the cost of the accreditation is very expensive. It
is also very expensive to maintain trained staff, equipment calibrations, and the records that are required
by AMRL. We pay about $20,000 to AMRL annually. I would estimate we spend another $50,000 to
$75,000 annually on calibration equipment and staff time to do the training, equipment maintenance,
equipment calibrations, and all the record keeping. That would be a rough estimate since we only track
costs by test.
Mark J. Dunn, P.E.
Operations Research Engineer
Research and Technology Bureau
Iowa Department of Transportation
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Ron, we do not have such language in our contract. Maybe should!
Dave
S. Dakota
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Good Afternoon Mr. Curb,
To answer your question concerning certification of labs with the universities that Missouri DOT works
with; there are no provisions in our research contracts or in our SPR Part 2 program policies requiring
them to be certified by any outside organizations.
MoDOT has a good relationship with both of our public university Engineering Schools and we have
them submit (as well as any other submitter) that they have the correct equipment and expertise to do
testing in their proposals. We require this in all of our Request for Proposals. If the projects include a
demonstration project or material that will be built on our highways within a construction contract we
usually do the materials testing in MoDOT’s laboratory which is certified by AMRL. Any materials not
normally inspected or certified by MoDOT are covered in a Job Special Provision which requires outside
independent lab certification.
We are confident in the University, if they are doing pure research for us, that they are doing the testing at
the university labs using AASHTO or ASTM specifications and keeping their lab equipment in proper
calibration. A lot of times they will work into their project proposals, where both universities are working
together on the project, to do testing that one has the equipment and expertise in at their own lab and have
a professor at the other school do testing that they are more proficient with and where the second
university has the needed or better test equipment. It is very expensive for the universities to have
certification done by AMRL or some other organization because they are charged a fixed sum each year
and then per test. They do not do that many different types of tests or number of tests that the DOT or an
independent lab does.
As an example we have a Transportation Pooled Fund project on Recycled Asphalt Shingles in Hot Mix
Asphalt with Iowa State University. The quality control testing required for the HMA that goes on the
road are being done by the DOT labs. MoDOT and Minnesota DOT are doing all the binder testing and
binder extraction testing of samples taken from all 8 states. ISU is testing other properties like BSG and
Rice Density Tests that they are most familiar with. ISU is working towards getting their lab certified but
have not dedicated the funding to do so yet.
MoDOT has been happy with the way things have worked out with the universities that we work with the
most. We have worked out the testing requirements during the Request for Proposals process and have
not run into problems with needing the University Laboratories to be independently certified.
If you have any further questions on the subject please contact me at 573-751-1039 or
John.Wenzlick@modot.mo.gov.
John "JD" Wenzlick, P.E.
Organizational Performance Engineer
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To my knowledge no such requirement exists.
Very truly yours,
Donny
Donald L. Williams PE
WVDOT-DOH
Research and Special Studies under Planning
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Ron, we do not contractually require our university lab equipment to be inspected and certified annually
to be in compliance with ASTM or AASHTO acceptable tolerances
Clint Adler, P.E.
Chief, Research Development & Technology Transfer
AKDOT&PF
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We do not currently have provisions in our contract language of our SPR Part 2 program or DOT policy
that require the university lab equipment be inspected and certified annually to be in compliance with
ASTM or AASHTO acceptable tolerances.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks.
Rick Collins, P.E.
TxDOT
Director, Research and Technology Implementation Office
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Included in our SPR-task scope of work for the Connecticut Advanced Pavement Laboratory are
requirements to test applicable AMRL proficiency samples, and to maintain an calibrate specific
equipment.
Pressure Aging Vessel, Vacuum Oven
Bending Beam Rheometer, Ignition Oven
Dynamic Shear Rheometer, Ovens
Dynamic Modulus Tester, Thermocouples
Direct Tension Tester, Sieves and Shaker
Rotational Viscometer, Sand Equivalent Equipment
Gyratory Compactors, LA Abrasion Equipment
Asphalt Pavement Analyzer, Compressed Air System
Vacuum System, Vacuum Sealing Appartatus for Bulk Specific Gravity of Cores
Jim
James M. Sime, P.E.
Manager of Research
Connecticut DOT
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